Diversionary Tactics
by intastella burst
Summary: Sawyer's having some trouble with a newfangled invention, and it's Jack to the rescue. Post-Island AU. Completely self-indulgent schmoopy fluff.


"Ow. Ow. Ow ow ow ow owwwww!" Sawyer groans, clutching his right eye in abject agony and bouncing up and down, face scrunched up against the tears streaming relentlessly down his face. "Son of a bitch!"

Jack promptly appears in the mirror behind him, grinning like a Chesire Cat, the dark circles beneath his eyes making him look like a self-satisfied rabbit, Sawyer thinks bitterly. "Someone say my name?"

"Cute," Sawyer mutters petulantly. Jack's forehead is appropriately furrowed, and his mouth is immediately serious with diagnostic concern, but Sawyer would bet his settlement from Oceanic--screw that, _both_ of their settlements from Oceanic--that the asshole is enjoying this. He claws at his eye, trying to remove the foreign object. Jack coughs in a suspiciously surreptitious manner and runs a washcloth beneath the faucet, wringing it out to dry and looking at Sawyer with the mildly exasperated concern of a parent whose kid won't quit whining about the invisible scrape on his knee.

"You know, Sawyer, it's perfectly normal to experience some discomfort. Some people's eyes just don't get used to the sensation." He gently peels Sawyer's fingers away from his face and probes at the swollen eyelid with the washcloth, ignoring Sawyer's sputtering.

"Patronizing bastard," he mutters. Jack giggles. Sawyer fails to see the humor of the situation. "They're _contact lenses_, not rocket science, Bill Nye the Science Guy, so as much as I appreciate your concern, I'd rather not roll around town looking like the Boy Who Lived--" Jack snickers again at that, the big geek, eyes going soft and crinkly and momentarily content around the corners as he dabs at the irritated area with those long fingers, surprisingly soft as they examine, and shit, he isn't going to fall for it, he isn't going to let Jack's aw-shucks-cutsey-doctoring ways distract him from the big picture, not now.

"Well, contacts _are_ magical," Jack says, still giggling.

"Magical, my ass," he growls. "I think I can handle it, Doc." He bats Jack's hands away and rubs at his eye with renewed fierceness. This time his efforts produce the apparent root of all evil, the floppy little transparent lens, half-crushed, lying there on his palm with a deceptive innocence. His eye still stings, but at least he can _see_ out of it now.

Jack swims into slightly blurry focus, this time with a genuine look of concern on his face. "What you looking at--" he begins aggrievedly, but before he can finish Jack's snatched the lens from his hand, doused it with a good amount of that crap they call "solution"--Sawyer thinks "cause" would be more appropriate--and has it balanced carefully between his thumb and forefinger. "Hey!" Sawyer makes a desperate lunge for it, but only succeeds in sending a bottle of Jack's mouthwash toppling to the floor. Thank God for airtight seals, because without them their bathroom would be smelling pretty minty fresh right about now. Before his reflexes can recover, Jack is right up against him, a predatory shine in his eye. _Crazy_ bastard.

"Sawyer," Jack says calmly, bracing himself on Sawyer's shoulder, his warm hand searing through the cotton of Sawyer's shirt in a highly disconcerting fashion. Clearly a diversionary tactic. But damn--he's got to hand it to Jack, no pun intended. It's _working_. "You've been at it for an hour and eight minutes--"

"What, you got a stopwatch?''

"--and you're getting nowhere. You're going to let me give it a try now." His tone is firm, Doctor-knows-best-so-don't-screw-with-me, and Sawyer would protest--he doesn't need _babying_--but Jack's really, really close, and when he puts his other hand on Sawyer's face, carefully pulling his eyelid open, looking right at him, mouth half-open in concentration as he pops the lens over Sawyer's pupil--he finds he doesn't have much will to fight any more.

"_Try_ not to poke my eye out," he mutters half-heartedly, slightly abashed, as Jack repeats the procedure on his other eye. He can almost taste Jack's morning coffee, black, on his tongue. Last night was a _long_ time ago, he realizes in a sudden, surely heaven-sent flash of clarity.

"I think you were doing a pretty good job of that on your own," Jack retorts, not unkindly, as Sawyer blinks frantically around the invasion, the unfamiliar feeling in his eyes. Slowly Jack comes back into focus, _real_ focus this time, and he hasn't moved away yet, if anything he's taken the chance to move closer yet, and the hand on Sawyer's shoulder feels like a _flame_. He grins lazily and doesn't let the butterflies in his stomach burst into song or any such revealing sappiness. _This_ he can control.

"Opportunist," he murmurs. Jack's dark eyes don't leave his, suddenly searching. The only indication that he heard Sawyer comes in the way his breath catches a little when Sawyer's fingers cover his.

"You know," he says quietly, after a moment, or a hundred, almost as if in a trance, "I never can figure out if your eyes are really blue or if they're green and it's just the light playing tricks on me." He sounds unexpectedly wistful, and the deep shadows beneath his eyes are like bruises, and he almost moves, as if to let go, but Sawyer won't let him. He blames the water welling in the corners of his own eyes on those damned contacts contacts. Jack's head ducks down a little, embarrassed. Sawyer grabs his chin and makes Jack look at him, willing the darkness away.

"This don't feel like a trick to me," he says softly, grinning mischievously, as soft as he as able, like he's talking to a woodland creature or some other such shit, trying not to scare it away, and Jack's puzzled frown gradually becomes a smile--maybe a reluctant one, but a smile all right. Sawyer pulls him in closer yet and Jack laughs, surprised by Sawyer's urgency.

If that isn't magical, he doesn't know what is.


End file.
